Tag Archives: labor

Oh LOOK who is suddenly on the side of organized labor, now that a bunch of scab refs are messing with his precious football? (Hint: it is Scott Walker, the union-busting asshole of a governor from Wisconsin.)
Read more on Look Who Suddenly Supports Labor Now That Scabs Are Messing With Football (Hint: It Is Scott Walker)…

Hey–remember Gina Rinehart? Oh, sure you do! She is the world’s richest woman and by some bizarre coincidence, also seems to be one of the world’s worst people. Here she is, warning Australians that it is ‘too expensive’ to mine there because she can hire Africans for less than $2 per day and oh, here she is again, suggesting that Australia make itself more profitable to her by passing a healthy wage cut. And before that, on Thursday, August 30, she advised us Poors to shut up and eat our gruel. No, really! “If you’re jealous of those with more money, don’t just sit there and complain,” she said in a magazine piece. “Do something to make more money yourself — spend less time drinking or smoking and socialising, and more time working.” What a nice lady! Isn’t she charming? What a national treasure for Australia, they must be so glad they have her all to themselves. Oh you do not find this charming? Well here, Mark Hendrickson has published a nice long essay in Forbes about how awesome Gina Rinehart is and why we should defend her specific brand of horribleness and praise her for telling the TRUTH, yes, the TRUTH, about Poors and how much we love our drinking and our socializing. Also? We should stop demonizing rich people because there are “good” rich people and “bad” rich people, and you’ll never guess which one Gina Rinehart is.
Read more on Forbes Explains Why You People Need More Horrible Rich Ladies Like Gina Rinehart…

The Republican party loves Labor Day so much that it’s gone and created a whole new special double version of it, on the same day. This one, however, celebrates the historical enemy of organized labor, the Noble Small Businessman. Everyone, quick, whip your cat’o nine tails at the nearest laborers to honor the owners of capital. “Today,” Richmond plantation master Rep. Eric Cantor wrote on the Twitter yesterday, “we celebrate those who have taken a risk, worked hard, built a business and earned their own success.” So yeah, he got Labor Day exactly wrong, but he knows that, and that’s why he’s generally considered an unlikable person. Read more on Eric Cantor Honors America’s Unsung Managerial Class on Labor Day…

Crossover Day! Crossover Day! A day when every possible batshit mean curbjob-the-welfare-Cadillac-Queens bill simply MUST get passed in order to avoid NOobAma’s death panels. What delights does Newtonia have in store for us, as it gets all slick and sweaty trying to catch up to your Floridas and Mississippis and good ol’ AZ’s? Let’s round them up and hoe them down! Piss-testing those on gubmint relief? Check. Banning union pickets in labor disputes (except for teachers and cops) — d/b/a your First Amendment right to assembly? But naturally. Letting the little Hitlers* of your neighborhood homeowners association ban yer dirty hippie solar panels? FUCK YEAH, COMMIE, GET OUT. Turning into hysterical ninnies about that other part of the First Amendment, religious liberty, as defined by the Founders’ Stated Intent of putting all the single ladiez under Sharia? What do you think?
Read more on Georgia Lege Goes For Gold In Wingnut Olympics…

As infamous walking cue-ball “Joe the Plumber” proved in 2008, America is top-loaded with dubiously employed gasbag wingnuts who believe they are the economic equals of the Koch Brothers. Each near-bankrupt sole proprietor of a drywall-hanging home-based business that hasn’t had any work since 2007 is now threatening to “stop job creation” because of the people protesting the banks. What happens when the teabaggers “go Galt” and nobody notices? Read more on Tea Party Dingbats Vow To Pretend To Stop Hiring Jobseekers…

A judge in Wisconsin’s Dane County has struck down the Scott Walker/Koch Brothers’ anti-collective bargaining law, which means Wisconsin will once again become a luscious workers paradise and all the mean old Tea Party people will be rolled off cliffs, in their wheelchairs. (No, wait, it’s the Republicans who will push all the old people off a cliff, to “fix Medicare.” We are still new here.)
Read more on Wisconsin Judge Strikes Down Evil Scott Walker-Koch Bros. Anti-Workers Law…

The Koch Brothers’ dumb little whore from Wisconsin, Scott Walker, is testifying before Congress today — and he’s got a very unique take on the class war he’s waging against the working citizens of his state. “In Wisconsin, we are doing something truly progressive. In addition to holding the line on spending and finding efficiencies in state government, we are implementing long term budget reforms focused on protecting middle class jobs and middle class taxpayers.” Uh, yeah! By screwing people out of the minimal protections unions provide for some public-sector workers, Scott Walker is actually protecting the middle class he and his corporate backers are intentionally destroying. Progressive! Read more on Scott Walker Says His Attack On U.S. Workers ‘Is Truly Progressive’…

The short, meteoric rise of some drunken loser flunk-out has come to an end, despite his dad being a wealthy GOP construction-industry lobbyist who demanded Scott Walker’s new administration hire up all the rich white Republican drunken loser flunk-out kids at $81,500 annual salaries. Brian Deschane, 27, was given the sweet job because his daddy gave Scott Walker $121,000 to run for governor. But then the mean old liberal newspaper wrote about young Deschane and his two DUI convictions that not even his daddy could make go away with a check to the judge, and then the socialists all started blogging it, and then Deschane got a demotion back to his previous sweet job, making $64,728 a year, also for nothing more than being the unemployable result of one of Scott Walker’s corporate donors ejaculating into a woman’s vagina some 28 years ago. Read more on GOP Lobbyist’s Drunken Loser Kid Resigns Sweet Job Walker Gave Him…

Scott Walker is America’s Biggest Loser because 19 counties where he won the majority vote in November have now turned against his boyfriend out-of-state billionaire radicals and gone to the side of Wisconsin working people.
Read more on Walker Loses 19 Wisconsin Counties In Supreme Court Election…

Remember that “labor-themed mural” in the Maine Department of Labor headquarters that wingnut teabagger Paul LePage ordered removed, because his administration hates Maine’s working families?
The U.S. Department of Labor says Gov. Paul LePage violated the terms of a federal grant when he removed a labor-themed mural from a state office building last month. Now the federal government, which paid most of the mural’s $60,000 cost, wants its money back.
Read more on U.S. Labor Dept. Wants Money It Gave Maine For Mural Torn Down By Teabagger Gov. Paul LePage…

Teabagger-piglet Paul LePage, who somehow became governor of Maine this year despite winning just 38% of the vote, has been aggressively trying to destroy the public worker unions as per his instructions from the Tea Party (Koch Industries). Just to make sure everyone knew he was going to be an incredible jackass in this attack on the people of Maine, LePage decided the labor history mural in the state’s Department of Labor building was, well, labor oriented. And everybody (Koch Industries) knows that’s a very bad thing, for American workers to be fairly compensated for their labor. So portly wingnut Paul LePage had this 36-foot-long mural ripped out, and then he hid it in an “undisclosed location,” and now it turns out he illegally violated the terms of the contract with the mural’s artist. Read more on Maine Governor Broke Law By Removing and Hiding Labor Mural…

From Reuters, the latest in your class warfare battle updates:
An Ohio House committee on Tuesday passed a bill that would restrict collective bargaining rights for about 350,000 public employees and ban them from striking.
Read more on And Now, Ohio Moves To Destroy Unions…

Still don’t believe it’s a full-on war against workers? It is: “Gov. Paul LePage has ordered the removal of a 36-foot mural depicting Maine’s labor history from the lobby of the Department of Labor. Worker advocates described the move as a ‘mean-spirited’ provocation amid the administration’s high-tension standoff with unions.” LePage is the new GOP/Tea Party governor who squeaked into office with 38% of the vote. And, like Scott Walker and another dozen Kochsuckers waging class war against American Workers from the statehouses, LePage is trying to break up what’s left of the unions and push everybody down to poverty just like his corporate backers want. No rights for workers, and to hell with anyone who complains — unless by “anyone” you mean “a billionaire industrialist who writes nice fat checks, for liberty libertarians.” Read more on Maine’s New Teabagger Governor Axes Labor Mural From Dept. of Labor…

A Wisconsin judge has temporarily blocked Scott Walker’s anti-workers bill from taking effect, saying the Wisconsin legislators’ passage of the law was likely illegal as it violated the state’s Open Meetings law. In other words, Walker’s errand for the Koch Brothers seems to have failed, at least in the short term. The judge also said Walker should be hanged, by firemen. Haha just kidding! She didn’t say exactly that. Read more on Koch-Blocked: Judge Blocks Wisconsin Anti-Workers Bill…

Hey, leftists and liberals and Democrats, remember a couple of years ago how super-excited you were about Barack Obama, the Chicago community organizer? Nobody really expected unicorns and a fair tax burden for the richest of the rich, but we were enthusiastic, right? Barack Obama has remained completely invisible during the intense labor battles raging in Wisconsin and Indiana and Ohio and even Tennessee. We sort of remember being at the Democratic convention and lots of Democratic presidential debates over the long 2007-2008 campaign, and it sure seems like labor played a decisive role in Obama getting the nomination and then winning the presidency. But now, even the head of the AFL-CIO is relegated to a backroom handshake with Joe Biden, because multi-millionaire golfer “centrist” Barack Obama doesn’t want to dirty his hands with the actual lives of the 90% of the country not living large. Rich people protect rich people, it’s that simple. Read more on Workers Nationwide Fighting For Labor Rights; Barack Obama Invisible…

Unlike the power-worshiping people-hating media whores who dismissed the whole fake-David Koch call that Scott Walker totally believed was really his boss David Koch, the Madison chief of police didn’t brush off Governor Walker’s telephone report card intended for a billionaire corporate master. Madison Police Chief Noble Wray says Walker’s recorded conversation about his plans to use agents provocateurs and thug violence against Wisconsin’s teachers and firefighters and police is “very unsettling and troubling.” Anybody remember when the governor of a neighboring state was impeached and convicted for his recorded conversations about taking simple bribes? Walker’s not only guilty of naked, admitted corruption — Walker has confirmed that it’s his voice saying he planned to hire interstate criminals to use felony violence against his constituents and state employees. Read more on Madison Police Chief Says Walker’s Comments ‘Unsettling and Troubling’…

General Motors is sure sounding communist these days. Maybe Scott Walker and Pedobear can catch a limo ride from the Koch Brothers over to Detroit, and then they can kill all these union members for working so hard on better products so that GM has made a profit for the first time since 2004.
Read more on GM Earns Big Profit, Pays $4,300 Checks To 45,000 Labor Union Workers…

Do you get the feeling America is in actual meltdown, for real this time, and that the outcome is as hazy as some night-time web video streaming on Al Jazeera from Libya or Bahrain or wherever? Pictured above is a Twitter post by Indiana Deputy Attorney General Jeff Cox, who responded to a Mother Jones post about the Wisconsin protests with the charming words, “Use Live Ammunition.” You know, murder government employees for having a labor protest. Murder them! Fucking traitors, right? Read more on Indiana Deputy Attorney General Suggests Killing Wisconsin Protesters With ‘Live Ammunition’…

Are those labor union bosses feeling any buyer’s remorse for “flushing $10 million” against Blanche Lincoln, who won anyway? The Politico quotes AFSCME leader Gerald McEntee sounding exactly like this vulgar, beloved AFSCME commercial’s narrator, which means …. the unions are really pissed at Bill Clinton. Read more on AFSCME, the F@$&!n Union That Works For You, Not Ever Working For Blanche Lincoln…

In these difficult times, when it seems everything is declining — corporate profits, individual incomes, assorted varieties and levels of a thing we used to call “hope” — one thing grows ever larger and more robust: our unemployment rate. Let’s hear it for the magical number 9.5, for that is the percentage of Americans who currently don’t have jobs. Read more on Unemployment Rate Still Thriving!…

OK here is the problem with labor/union disputes: they are invariably very complicated and sort of dull to the uninitiated. The articles about these disputes are fiendishly unskimmable, and they often discuss legislation that doesn’t at first glance favor one side or the other until you look into it and realize they are PURE GOOD/EVIL. Thus it is with some trepidation that we even attempt to wade into the Hilda Solis debacle. Read more on Labor Nomination Held Up Due To Nominee’s Support Of Labor…

*CORRUPT JANUS UNION TO ENDORSE OBAMA:* Take that, Buffenbarger! Your two-faced Roman god Janus, Barack Obama, has earned the Teamsters union endorsement. The Teamsters represent 1.4 million Americans, and they also control the Democratic political machine, but that was actually like 60 years ago. Meanwhile, all that remains of Hillary Clinton’s base is a ladies’ bridge club in Westchester county, but they might be tilting towards McCain. [AP/Breitbart]
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